Adventures in Guangzhou!

This feeling is nothing new, really, but you always forget about it when you're away from home. When I was little, I remember feeling this way in West Hartford after a long day trip to New York or Boston. In college, I remember feeling this way at Wesleyan after a weekend road trip to a friend's university. I always feel it when I return to the Vineyard. And now, after a three week trip around Southeast Asia, I'm relishing it in Guangzhou.

Though the trip was unforgettable, it wasn't home. I couldn't walk down the street in Laos and have a shopkeeper say hello to me. I couldn't go to a restaurant in Thailand and have the waitress ask if I wanted the usual. I couldn't jog out to the football field in Malaysia and be greeted with the smiles and jokes of old teammates. I couldn't go to the market in Singapore and have the fruit woman ask us where we've been. So, to be brief, it's nice to be back.

For my first week back in the classroom, I had my students think of new year's resolutions for the new lunar year. Though this is a surprisingly western phenomenon, I think they got something out of it. I got the usual responses of "I want to improve my studies," "I want to make some money," and "I want to get taller," the latter of which caused me both laughter and confusion as I tried to explain that it wasn't a resolution; but, as always, a few students caught me off guard. I had one bright young girl tell me that she wanted "to learn how to look at the world in a different way," and another tell me she hoped "to help those more unfortunate." If we all made resolutions like that, can you imagine how much better the world would be?

Anyhow, my first week back was also highlighted by a visit from my friend and PiA mentor, Professor Lynn White. Though busy writing a new back on his sabbatical, he and his wife made their way up to Guangzhou from Macau and treated Nick and I to lunch. As both an overwhelmingly intelligent guy and a China scholar with close to thirty years of travel experience here, it was great to chat for the afternoon. Spending time with such an incredible person, it made me wax philosophical a bit about what my life could be like if I went the route of academia.

I think many students at good liberal arts colleges consider this for at least a brief period of time because education and academia is all we know when we graduate. The romantic notion of the professor in a tweed jacket surrounded by stacks of books and research materials is an attractive one. In reality, nowadays it's a tough road to make it as a professor, but it's still nice to dream. I'd give almost anything to get paid to teach curious, intelligent students, research interesting ideas, travel the world, and simply learn. While it can be done at the high school level, it's just not the same.